Category: Emergencies

Here’s your weekly update on what different members of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement* are doing.

Yemen: More than three weeks of intense armed confrontations in northern Yemen have left the civilian population in parts of Sa’ada, Amran and Jawf in dire need of food, shelter and medical care. Access to the affected people remains difficult because of ongoing fighting. More

Share this story

Imagine it’s 3am and you’ve just lost everything you own in a house fire. Everyone is safe but the children are cold and you have nowhere to go. Listen to a couple of the incredible volunteers who turn up to help their neighbours cope with crises at any time, day or night.

Soon after, the British Red Cross and the Order of St John joined together as the Joint War Organisation. Our two organisations had worked together to help war victims during the First World War, too.

In both wars, thousands of women and men signed up to be volunteers (or, as they were officially known, ‘voluntary aid detachments’ or VADs). One of the iconic images of the Red Cross historically is of women in white nurses uniforms with a big red cross on the bib; but not all our volunteers were nurses.

Share this story

I knew I was right. New scientific research claims that a cup of tea really can help reduce stress levels during times of crisis. As a life-long fan of the mighty tea leaf, I’m not in the least surprised.

Share this story

The following post is from Ros Armitage, operations manager at the British Red Cross:

Last week was the 60th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions. To a non-lawyer such as myself the Conventions and their Additional Protocols are “the rules of war” and form the cornerstone of international humanitarian law. They are incredibly important as they are designed to limit how war is conducted and the effects of war. They exist to limit suffering and to protect people not involved in a conflict such as civilians (including health workers and aid workers) and those no longer taking part in a conflict such as the sick and wounded, shipwrecked and prisoners of war. 194 countries have signed up to the Conventions signalling the significance in which they are held worldwide. The Conventions cover mainly international wars, or wars between countries but one of the Additional Protocols specifically covers wars within countries. More